Posts tagged: StumbleUpon

Facebook, StumbleUpon Rock Your World!

I am glad that I didn’t follow through on my decision last year to close my StumbleUpon account. I was getting tired of SU, finding myself particularly annoyed with certain network changes that seemed to limit my ability to connect with people through this popular bookmarking service.

FacebookIn addition, SU appeared to be going the way of Reddit—gamed and controlled by nasty people whose idea of free speech is to hurl invectives at other users. Cowards!

But I stayed on and have no regrets with my decision. I certainly don’t use SU as frequently as I once did, but I have also found that most of the cowardly users have now been contained. Life is good and, if a March 2010 StatCounter GlobalStats survey of top social media sites is accurate, then sticking with SU was a good decision on my part.

StumbleUponYes, SU rocks your world if you use it: only Facebook outperforms it in sending traffic your way.

According to Stat Counter, Facebook is credited with racking up 48 percent of all social media hits, but SU is a strong second as it adds 25 percent to that mix. And Twitter? Not as important as some might think, generating just 10 percent of all hits. YouTube, Reddit, Digg and MySpace round out the next four spots, offering small amounts of traffic in comparison.

TwitterSU has never been a dud when it comes to social media—far from it. As recently as June 2009, SU was ahead of Facebook, but the world’s most popular social networking site soon soared while SU began to slip. Recent traffic reports reveal that Facebook has lost some of its steam while SU has recaptured what it had lost, but in all likelihood it will remain Facebook first, StumbleUpon second, with everyone else a distant third or beyond.

One of my chief reasons for staying with SU is that I was connected with so many people through this service. As I contemplated dropping SU, I realized that I would be saying good-bye to a significant number of people I followed and who followed me.

There really wasn’t a reasonable alternative: I don’t use Facebook all that much and Twitter just doesn’t offer the scale of the others. Besides, my traffic stats continued to rise thanks to SU interaction, bringing visitors and new customers my way.

Every social media/networking site has its benefits and faults but Facebook, with more than 400 million users and StumbleUpon, with its nifty bookmarking arrangement, capture more than two-thirds of all social media hits.

Looks like I’ll have to rethink my Facebook strategy next!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

categories Social Media | , 29 Apr 10 | comments Comments (19)

Guest Blogging: Following Up On My Blog Guest

At the beginning of February, I shared with you “My Blog Guest,” a blogging venture started by Ann Smarty who is well known in SEO circles. At that time I had yet to welcome my first guest blogger, but since then I’ve published four articles across three sites and am about to approve or publish two more.

My Blog GuestI won’t go into all the details about this terrific site; please read my earlier article and visit My Blog Guest to learn more. But what I will share with you today are some observations on how to work with guest bloggers, offering tips to help make this practice work well for your blogs.

Make A Plan – If you own one or more blogs, you may benefit from having a guest writer contribute unique material. Although I don’t need outside contributors I have found that some of my guest bloggers are regular readers anyway, so why not reward their loyalty by encouraging a guest post? Still, you may need to plan what type of articles you want to appear on your site—I enjoy contributions in areas where my expertise isn’t particularly strong.

Post Your Request – Though there are other guest blogging sites out there, I only belong to Ann’s site. So, I can’t speak about how the others work. With My Blog Guest you register with that site, create a profile and then put your request on the forum. You can also answer requests for guest bloggers to contribute your work elsewhere.

Do Your Homework – Once you post your request (be as detailed as possible) expect to receive several replies, some of which will be posted right online while others will be sent to you via private message. A few people may discover your email address and send a proposal directly to you. I always ask for samples of previously published work, a topic proposal and a general outline before proceeding. I then put out the parameters for the article—typically 400 to 750 words—and then wait until I receive a draft before taking the next step.

Carefully Review Contributions – I don’t want duplicate content so I check with Copyscape to make sure what is sent to me is unique. I also ask people not to use the article elsewhere after the fact as I want to keep what is published on my blogs unique. If someone wants to do a heavy rewrite and use it elsewhere that’s fine with me. I also will edit articles if something isn’t clear, but I usually don’t uphold AP Stylebook standards because we’re talking about blogs, not newspaper sites. Still, if something needs to be clarified or made more concise, I may rework it myself slightly.

Be Link Generous – I limit links to just two per article and I usually require those links to appear in the “author’s resource box” at the end of the article. But, if links are relevant to the article, then they are included. Moreover, I utilize StumbleUpon and Twitter to make sure that the articles get noticed and I’ll push it through other SEO channels if warranted.

Ultimately, I believe that guest articles are mutually beneficial to contributor and to blog owners alike, so I do what it takes to help everyone out.

Am I sold on guest blogging? You bet! Though I haven’t contributed to other blogs since last year, I expect when things slow down for me after tax season that I’ll make my own contributions here and there.

Guest blogging rocks and Ann Smarty’s site helps bring people together; a winning combination you may want to explore further.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

categories SEO, Writing | , 23 Mar 10 | comments Comments (15)